Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 568 posts

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#281

Post by itsmeamario »

learc83 wrote: post #151
iso1631 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still, these HN threads always come to the same conclusion that there remain elements of the college experience that can only be found on campus. In my view the college experience (societies, living away from home, mixing with people from outside your local area) is far more useful than the actual teaching. "There's a time and a place for everything - and it's called college". However with covid, all that is remove…

>However with covid, all that is removed, It's very unlikely that this lasts more than another semester or so though. If you're looking to enroll in the fall or the next year, it shouldn't be a big concern.

I'd like to see your sources on that.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#282

Post by nordsieck »

cousin_it wrote: post #205
nordsieck wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone has to come up with criteria based on whatever goals and values they think are important. The most obvious criteria is: most likely to graduate. Some others that aren't bad: * Highest expected value of future donations * Highest expected value of impact (publication) * Highest expected value of future salary * Highest expected value of holding public office (the weighting here might be contentious) As long…

Not sure that's the right approach. Admitting people who are most likely to succeed is credit-taking in the guise of teaching. To maximize college's benefit to society, I think you should admit people whose success would be most improved by college. It would be a bit counterintuitive though, you would mostly admit average applicants (because top ones will succeed anyway).

> To maximize college's benefit to society, I think you should admit people whose success would be most improved by college.

1. I'm have yet to be convinced that Harvard is trying to maximize its benefit to society.

2. Even if we stipulate that Harvard's sole goal is to maximize its benefit to society, it may be that increasing the number of Jeff Deans or Jim Kellers, even by a small amount, is more beneficial to society than better educating a lot of average people.

... or it may not be. My point is that the approach you suggest is not obviously correct.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#283

Post by webmaven »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #269
iagovar wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds bad if you're a white non-rich kid.

Who cares about those? Definitely not the new American left.

Classism may not be quite as "trendy" as racism or sexism right this minute, but I think you'll still find plenty of interest in the topic (and it's intersections with the others) on the left.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#284

Post by free_rms »

lallysingh wrote: post #275
wait_a_minute wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares about those? Definitely not the new American left.

Because it's definitely a zero-sum game.

In the context of Harvard's ~1,000 admissions a year, it's definitionally a zero-sum game.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#285

Post by colllectorof »

chrxr wrote: post #123
filereaper wrote: post #31

I highly recommend watching the video by Scott Galloway on The College Implosion. [1] "Colleges have become luxury brands and are adopting a strategy of artificial scarcity to create irrational margins" There's a large movement right now where many are saying the large tuition fees for Zoom lectures aren't worth it. Colleges sell themselves for the experience and are a luxury lifestyle brand almost, but with covid th…

If the learning experience is simplified to listening to a lecture, either live or recorded, and all grading is done algorithmically, then yes, there is no scaling limitation. This would be considered a very poor learning experience though. Even in the School of Engineering at Harvard, even for the CS classes, very few use autograding. Students expect individual feedback on their work. They expect the ability to pers…

>Also worth noting that 20% of Harvard students pay 0 tuition, and more than 50% get needs-based scholarships. https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid. So if you're smart enough, and/or fit into the financial aid brackets, why not go to Harvard?

Are you seriously suggesting that 50% the most talented students in the country have $313,000 for tuition?

If financial aid and scholarships worked as advertised, Ivy League schools would be filled to the brim with talented people. There would be no space left for stupid kids with rich parents. Yet those kids get in, reliably. There were many scandals related to that recently. Heck, just look at the children of major US politician and media elites.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#286

Post by magicsmoke »

aiisahik wrote: post #242

As an Asian who went to an Ivy, I welcome this change. Yes, it will mask a policy of keeping the proportion of Asians lower than a race neutral policy. Yes, it's racially discriminatory. Yes, it's somewhat unfair to Asians who are trying to get in. But no, being fair isn't the point of these schools. Nor is having the most academically excellent student population. If you want that, go to Berkeley or CalTech. The poi…

Yep, Asians need to learn how to play the race politics card. All those white politicians didn't get into the white house because they had good grades, but because they knew how to play to the crowd. In a democratic society, if you don't know how to get others to like you you'll always be screwed by someone who does. Remember, the employee that gets promoted isn't the one that works the hardest, but the one that their coworkers like the best. Reality isn't school, you aren't judged by the letters on a report card but how well you can navigate through a society made of other individuals. Whether that's by kissing up to white male bosses on wall street or being surrounded by minority activists on main street, social manipulation skills gives much more leverage than hard technical skills.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#287

Post by user982 »

aiisahik wrote: post #242

As an Asian who went to an Ivy, I welcome this change. Yes, it will mask a policy of keeping the proportion of Asians lower than a race neutral policy. Yes, it's racially discriminatory. Yes, it's somewhat unfair to Asians who are trying to get in. But no, being fair isn't the point of these schools. Nor is having the most academically excellent student population. If you want that, go to Berkeley or CalTech. The poi…

> I wouldn't want to go to a college that is 50% Asian and 1% black over a college that reflected the demographics of the country.

Did the Ivy you went to reflect the demographics of the country better than all other colleges?

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#288

Post by viklove »

Pfhreak wrote: post #263
tinyhouse wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not hiding it doesn't mean it's OK. Maybe corrupt is not the right word but it's not that important. Things like this are exactly what people are talking about when they protest against privilege.

Harvard has 2400 professors and admits about 6000 students each year. Each professor might have a child that is at college age, but most won't. And parental admittance isn't a guarantee. We're talking about a negligible number of students on this path weighed against the employee happiness and retention.

We're talking about someone getting something they don't deserve due to their birth alone. That kind of injustice doesn't last long in society without someone calling it out.

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#289

Post by thaumasiotes »

0d9eooo wrote: post #241
ylem wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb question, but are GPAs useless? I mean a plot of say high school GPA vs say college graduation rate or college GPA would be rather informative.

No. Empirically, they're as predictive as or more predictive of future educational performance (usually first-year college GPA) than test scores, despite grade inflation (which isn't as extreme as some would have you think). The advantage of GPA is it's an average over a long time period, unlike a test, which is a slice at a very brief moment. The disadvantage of GPA is variability in course difficulty and grading st…

> [GPAs a]re as predictive as or more predictive of future educational performance (usually first-year college GPA) than test scores, despite grade inflation (which isn't as extreme as some would have you think).

But in the context of this finding, the returns to grade inflation are limited by the fact that, when you report your GPA, you also report a standardized test score. This theoretically nullifies any potential benefit to grade inflation. (In practice, there's still a benefit.)

When there is no outside check on the reliability of GPAs, might they adjust by inflating a lot more than they already have?

Re: Harvard University Won’t Require SAT, ACT for Admissions Next Year

#290

Post by Balgair »

beaner wrote: post #46
xvedejas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote Scott Aaronson: Admissions to the top US universities—and hence, most chances for social advancement in the US—will henceforth be based entirely on shifting and nebulous criteria that rich, well-connected kids and their parents spend most of their lives figuring out, rather than merely mostly based on such criteria. The last side door for smart noncomformist kids is now being slammed shut.

It reminds me of a section of Thomas Sowell's book Discrimination and Disparities. It was talking about automatic background checks for applicants at businesses. Some people wanted such processes to be illegal, on the grounds that they were supposedly racist. In reality, automatic (i.e. indiscriminate ) background checks actually resulted in more blacks being hired. Even if the local black population had a higher or…

Credit checks had a similar impact for minority and disadvantaged communities. Before, if you wanted to get a mortgage or a car loan, the bank would assess you based on a number of factors. Many banks explicitly used race as a criteria for denial. Now, with near instant credit checks, race has been removed as an explicit criteria, rightfully leading to much higher rates of loans and mortgages for minority and disadvantaged communities. Are credit checks anywhere close to reliable or fair? Can you correlate race based on zip code or other factors? Yes, these methods are not anywhere close to 'good enough'. But they are miles ahead of the explicit racism that preceded these form of financial product applications.
Post reply on HN